The Loneliest One
by rhead-a-holyc
Summary: Barry's thoughts at turning 755...


He was 755 years old today, far older than anyone he knew and many years older than the next oldest person, and all of his friends had long since passed away.

Barry had managed to meet several million people in that time, many of whom he couldn't remember or whose names had long since faded from his memory. Names weren't all too important anyway. No one actually cared whether Barry managed to get their names right. They all knew he was old and expected him to have an extremely bad memory.

They would be arriving in pairs or groups. They always did, laughing and joking as they entered the birthday party to someone they didn't care for. They only wanted to be invited, and he indulged them. There was no reason not to spend extravagantly; after all, the last of his familial line had broken off from the family a century ago.

Barry hadn't bothered keeping track of them afterwards. He had found out, not to long afterwards, that they had only kept in contact with him to ensure they were given access to the vault he had set aside for them. That vault had been cancelled immediately, and the money was used for the birthday parties he was now famous for.

He knew that there was a very good chance that he could die any day now. He really was pushing the limits of how long a wizard could live, but he was definitely not going to raise the white flag in surrender to death just yet. Barry was going to fight death until there was no getting away from it. He would only give up when _he_ chose to.

That meant that he would be alone for some time yet. All those people who were stepping into his home had friends they could relate to, and other people who had experienced similar events to them. The only people he could somewhat relate to were the Flamels, but he wasn't an alchemist so the conversation quickly ran dry. Potions and Alchemy weren't his strong points, he had tried once every century when he got bored with the same things over and over again.

It wasn't like he wanted to be a master in any craft either. He didn't want to be constantly bothered by people who wanted to know this or that at odd times. Barry was a mediocre wizard, and that had always been quite satisfactory but that kept him out of the higher circles he sometimes wondered about.

While Barry wanted to live for as long as possible, he often wondered why he enjoyed being as isolated as he was. The ghosts of his time weren't particularly good at conversation, constantly bemoaning their fate whenever he attempted to talk to them as desperation for a conversation hit him.

Barry wasn't tired of life rather he was constantly bored with it. The new inventions and findings were interesting enough, but they were so few and far between. The muggle world developed much faster, and he had sometimes taken to wandering through the muggle world. The only problem with that being how old he looked which led to several people asking questions he didn't really want to answer.

The glamours that Barry had tried using after the first time took far more magic than he had been able to afford and had caused him to pass out in his bedroom. It was his magic that had been sustaining him all these years, not that he had a lot of it but simply because his body had relied only on a tiny portion of it originally. That had been something that had isolated him further, and he knew that many of the people at his birthday were going to whisper about his lack of magic again. Barry couldn't participate in most of the things he had arranged, restricted by the amount of magic it would take to keep him conscious for that action.

He wished he could participate though, and show all of them that he wasn't the snob they portrayed him to be. Barry didn't want to be the snob at his own party, that was why he had always been mediocre with everyone else.

They wouldn't understand. There wasn't a person arriving today who would live beyond two hundred years. None of them would understand that there was no secret to this, and that he hadn't found some odd elixir to keep him alive and that he certainly had no piece of the Flamels' Philosopher's Stone.

Barry held no living person's secrets, and none of the living held any of his. There simply was no longer a point for all that. Nothing could 'ruin' him in the way that everyone entering feared would happen to them, and any spending of money would only relieve him of that gold because he certainly wouldn't want the Ministry to have that money. It wouldn't help anyone there.

A sigh escaped Barry's lips as a gust of chilly air swept past him, ruffling his clothes in ways that it had already been ruffled before. The balcony allowed him a view of the entire entrance of his property. It was the only thing that had remained untouched by all the changes he had made to the building simply because his wife had loved it.

Other than the large pensieve that he had filled with memories of her and his children, that was all he had left of her. The rose-bushes she had planted had been killed by some uncaring guest as they passed. The grief Barry felt for them had faded, but the memories had, thankfully, left something for him to cling to when he felt particularly lonely.

Barry was the last person standing, but also the loneliest one.

**AN: Written for Bot-Battles Challenge: flag**

**Written for Triwizard Tournament (extra): Barry Wee Willie Winkle**

**Written for Potions Assignment 3: Gold: write about someone who feels left out (150 – 1500 words)**


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